Theory and methodology of e-learning research

1. Theory and methodology of e-learning research Gráinne Conole PhD research day, 21/2/12 University of Leicester

2. Outline • An overview of e-learning research • Empirical evidence • Examples of current research • Theories underpinning the field • Methodologies

3. E-learning research • Learner experience • Teacher practice • Social & participatory media • Learning design • Learning spaces • Mobile learning • Virtual worlds

4. E-learning research • Learning analytics • Use of Virtual Learning Environments • Open Educational Resources • Pedagogical patterns • Digital literacies • Creativity and technologies • Openness

5. Cross cutting themes • Affordances of technologies • Barriers and enablers • Case studies of good practice • Emergent technologies • Changing practices • Institutional implications

6. Learning spaces • Metaphors • Camp fire • Watering hole • Cave • Mountain top • Principle of learning space design • Comfort • Aesthetics • Flow • Equity • Blending • Affordances • Repurposing www.skgproject.com

7. New digital literacies Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking Play Collective intelligence Judgement Performance Transmedia navigation Simulation Networking Appropriation Multitasking Negotiation Distributed cognition Creativity Jenkins et al., 2006

8. Learner experience • Technology immersed • Learning approaches: task-orientated, experiential, just in time, cumulative, social • Personalised digital learning environment • Mix of institutional systems and Cloud-based tools and services • Use of course materials with free resources Sharpe, Beetham and De Freitas, 2010

9. EDUCAUSE study • Students drawn to new technologies but rely on more traditional ones • Consider technologies offer major educational benefits • Mixed views of VLEs

10. Teacher practices: paradoxes • Technologiesnot extensively used (Molenda) • Lack of uptake of OER (McAndrew et al.) • Little use beyond early adopted (Rogers) • Despite rhetoric and funding little evidence of transformation (Cuban, Ehlers) Pandora’s box What would it mean to adopt more open practices? Open design, open delivery, open research and open evaluation?

11. Open practices Open design Open delivery Pandora’s box Open dialogue Open research

12. Shift frombelief-based, implicit approaches todesign-based,explicit approaches Learning Design A design-based approach to creation and support of courses Encouragesreflective,scholarly practices Promotessharing and discussion Open design

13. Course map Learning outcomes Task swimlane Pedagogy profile Course dimensions Course views

14. But does it work? I find the document quite thought-provoking, especially as a starting point in this journey for developing good understandings It is iterative and so helps with ironing out any issues I could understand the learning design process and would feel able to use this when designing some learning activities

15. Open resources

16. Open courses: MOOC Massive Open Online Course http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc http://mooc.ca/

17. Peer to Peer University OER University http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/ http://www.p2pu.org/en/ Open accreditation

18. Open dialogue: Cloudworks http://cloudworks.ac.uk • A space for sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas and designs • Application of the best of web 2.0 practice for teaching • To bridge the gap between technologies and use • Teachers say they want: examples, want to share & discuss • Helps develop skills needed for engaging with new technologies’

19. Community indicators Participation Sustained over time Commitment from core group Emerging roles & hierarchy Cohesion Support & tolerance Turn taking & response Humour and playfulness Creative capability Igniting sense of purpose Multiple points of view expressed, contradicted or challenged Creation of knowledge links & patterns Identity Group self-awareness Shared language & vocab Sense of community Galley et al., 2010

20. Discovery Integration Application Teaching Open Digital Networked Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/ Boyer Open scholarship

21. Open research

22. The future of learning Just in time Distributed Collective Personalised Creative Blurred Responsive Open Distributed

23. Empirical evidence • Review of social and participatory media (Conole and Alevizou, 2010) • Review of e-learning pedagogies (Conole, 2010) • Review of TEL researchers (Conole, et al., 2011) • Networked learning ‘hotseat’ on theory and methodology (Conole, 2010)

24. Theory • Activity theory • Actor Network Theory • Community of Practice • Social capital • Cybernetics

25. Activity Theory

26. Methodology • Case studies • Evaluation • Virtual ethnography • Content analysis • Action research • Design-based research

27. My influences • Laurillard • Salomon • Lave and Wenger • Engestrom • Wetsch • Cole • Daniels • Schon • Atkins • Seely Brown • Pea • Perkins

28. Tips • To do list, milestones, deadlines • Share drafts and get comments! • Present and get feedback at conferences • Network, network, network! • Publish as you go • Up to date bibliography, use ref software! • Nail your methodology

29. Final thoughts • Open, participatory and social media enable new forms of communication and collaboration • Communities in these spaces are complex and distributed • Learners and teachers need to develop new digital literacy skills to harness their potential • We need to rethinkhow we design, support and assess learning • Open, participatory and social media can provide mechanisms for us to share and discuss teaching and research ideas in new ways • We are seeing a blurring of boundaries: teachers/learners, teaching/research, real/virtual spaces, formal/informal modes of communication and publication